“All o’ that—and then a little more,” Lon assured him.
The man rubbed his eyes. “I dunno’s I happen to know you folks, but I cal’late you’re the crowd I passed a rod or so back.”
“Call it a couple o’ forty-rods.”
“Well, mebbe. There was sort of a blur side of the road, but I’d got other things to think about. And say! was we touchin’ ground anywhere when we went by you?”
“Not as I noticed,” Lon told him.
The man nodded. “She was a goer, all right, that machine! But she wa’n’t no lady’s drivin’ car. Feller that let me have her said that, and, by gum, he hit it!”
“Looks that way,” Lon agreed. “But don’t you belong over Waterville way? And ain’t your name Haskins? ’Tis, eh? Thought I’d seen you before.”
“Oh, I’m Jabe Haskins, sure enough,” said the other. “Don’t wonder you didn’t recognize me fust-off. Guess I must have aged twenty years while I was shootin’ over that stun wall. You see, I was wonderin’ which of the fifty-seven possible ways I’d hit when I landed; but pshaw! I was clean off the track, for I hit all of ’em. Guess that’s what saved my neck—kinder distributed the shock, y’know. But I’ll never again be the man I was! Whew! but I’m all one ache, and dented from one end of me to the other!”
“Course, if you want to over-speed——” Lon began, but Haskins cut him short.
“’Twa’n’t what I wanted to do, Mister, but what that blessed machine did. Bolted, she did! Took the bit in her teeth, and went it for keeps! Fust time I’d been runnin’ her, y’see. Jest swapped for her. Turned in a hoss and somethin’ to boot and——”